Some of the terminologies that are frequently used in this guide are described in this section.

Gateway

A Gateway is a physical device that serves as a connection point between the cloud (public or on premises) and controllers, sensors, and intelligent devices. All data moving to and from the cloud goes through the Gateway. The VMware Pulse IoTC Agent runs and collects information on behalf of other connected Thing devices through the Gateway.

Connected Device or Thing Device

A connected device or a Thing device is a nonstandard computing device that can transmit data and is connected to a Gateway. The Thing device connects to a Gateway and sends information to the server through the VMware Pulse SDK Client that is running on the Gateway.

Registered Device

A registered device is a virtual Gateway that is created on the server. A registered device does not have a physical Gateway associated with it.

Enrolled Device

A registered Gateway is enrolled when a physical Gateway is associated with it.

VMware Pulse IoTC Agent

The VMware Pulse IoTC Agent is a component that resides in the Gateway. It connects the VMware Pulse IoT Center services to run commands and to send operational metrics to the IoTC services. The VMware Pulse IoTC Agent offers an SDK that exposes APIs. Third-party applications can use these APIs on the Gateway to interact with VMware Pulse IoT Center.